Because there are no Answers without Questions

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Archive | January 2016

Nothing in the external experience of your life has to change. Not one thing.

The personal self makes you think you must do or change something to be purposeful. You must take action to find your value. You must constantly be on a vigilant quest to fulfill your destiny. It does this so you keep your focus outside of yourself. You will continue to look and ponder and wander and wonder, but you will never find your Real Purpose out there in life’s externals.

“Seek but do not find.”

A Course In Miracles

(T-16.v.6; W-71.4; M-13.5)

Real Purpose isn’t about doing, it’s about being. You already are purposeful.

You woke up. You are reading this. You drank your coffee, or you didn’t. Yet, you are powerfully purposeful. You might have forgotten this or been distracted by believing you are not enough.

The power of Real Purpose comes from within. Real Purpose is a present-moment decision. Real Purpose is remembering You are Love at all times.

AT ALL TIMES.

I said God’s plan for you was simple, but it isn’t necessarily easy. Loving the unlovable, in whatever form it shows up for you, takes tremendous strength, courage and commitment.

You can’t do it alone. You have to reach for God’s Hand to help you. Trust me, you are going to have to reach again and again, so much so that your arm will ache with the effort. You are going be scared. You are going to feel alone. Why? Because choosing Love over fear isn’t what you are used to. There will be times that even leaning on the strength of God won’t be enough. You are going to let go of His Hand. You will run away and never want to look at Love again. But you won’t be the same. Living in fear and searching, searching, searching for a solace outside yourself that can’t be found, won’t be enough anymore. So, with a heavy heart and fear of the unknown, you will once again raise your, aching outstretched arm to God. Part of you hopes He lets go of you forever. Part of you knows He never let go in the first place.

You are Love.

You are Loved.

If you remember only this in every encounter or every endeavor, you are fulfilling God’s plan.

Inside each of us sits a remarkable pocket of Grace. This Grace can only be touched in silence. You must step outside of your personal self, you must lay aside all thoughts and notions of time and you must quiet your soul into absolute stillness to find it.

The Whole of the Universe lives inside this Grace Pocket. You don’t have to be rich or beautiful or even kind to be still and touch this gift of God. You only need to make the choice to look for it.

Sometimes the world appears so distracting that your attention wavers and drifts away from Grace. While you worry about the future, ponder about the past or sense fear lurking around every corner, you can’t remember to look for it. In fact, you might begin to believe that it was never there.

I promise, Grace has never left your side. Not once. Not now. Not ever.

How can I know this?

You are Grace.

As you begin to uncover the Grace inside you, then you will easily find it in all that you see and in everyone you meet. The world is no longer a place to be feared. It is a place to Love and be Loved.

In the battle of the Split Mind (ego vs. God), you would think that God easily conquers all. If we accurately perceived we live in the True World of Perfect Oneness, then, yes, God easily conquers. Believing we are tiny, personal selves, however, puts the ego in charge.

The ego, as referred to in A Course In Miracles, does not mean an inflated sense of self in which the body (the tiny self) believes it is superior to other bodies. The ego is simply the belief that we are a body at all.

If you believe you are a body, you believe in the ego and its limited thought system.

When you catch a glimpse of the unlimited God, which is a formless experience of Peace, you finally start to question the validity of the ego.

“….spirit offers you the knowledge of permanent and unshakeable being. No one who has experienced the revelation of this can ever fully believe in the ego again.”

-A Course in Miracles (T-4.3.3:6-7)

Attempting, in error, to acclimate the ego to the Experience of God is when the battle begins. This is an error because the ego and God do not coexist. They are separate.

“Thoughts of God are unacceptable to the ego, because they clearly point at the nonexistence of the ego itself. The ego therefore either distorts them or refuses to accept them. It cannot, however, make them cease to be.”

-ACIM (T-4.5.2:2-4)

The goal is to realize that anything that the body experiences as loving joy, is an extension of the God Experience. Anything originating in fear is from the ego.

The ego is wily and expertly blurs this distinction. Since you identify with the ego so closely, it uses this identification against you. It’s hard to fathom that as a body, you’ve never actually created a thing. Either you have recognized the Love of God or you haven’t

The beauty of this is that all the bad you thought was your fault, or all the bad you believe your Brothers created, simply does not exist.

“Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the Peace of God.”

-ACIM Introduction

Where it starts to seem impossible is the realization that nothing the body creates or perceives is real.

I am standing on the sandy shore surrounded by the people I love. Everything I’ve been taught to believe reminds me that this shore is where it’s at. I try harder than I’ve tried at anything else to stay put. I pretend I believe and feel the same as my shore-mates.

Yet,….

I’m not happy here. Every day I become more and more uncomfortable in my own skin. My anxiety is unbearable. Physically, I don’t feel well. Mentally, my head feels like it’s a hair’s breath away from total implosion. Until, one day, I can’t take it anymore.

I see a boat.

I run to the boat. My heart is pounding and my only focus is get to that boat.

I climb aboard. I sit for a minute. For the first time on the bow of this boat, I feel normal. Me? Feeling normal? I didn’t know it was possible.

The peace is glorious here, but it is temporary. I have to go back to the shore. And I do. I don’t have a choice. The people I love are there.

Once I’m back on shore I try to talk to people about the amazing experience of peace I had. They have no idea what I am talking about. They think I’m crazy. I think I’m crazy. So, I keep my mouth shut and try to focus my attention on the amazing people who inhabit this shore. I hope this is enough.

It doesn’t work. I have to go back to the boat. This time, after I climb aboard, the boat starts to go out to sea.

I’m scared.

While I love being on the boat, I’m completely alone.

Something tells me, the sailing won’t be smooth to where I’m going.

It isn’t.

The seas change in an instant. Where there was infinite peace lighting up the distant horizon, it gets blocked by stormy clouds. Then, the rain comes. Followed by the most dangerous lightning and frightening waves I’ve ever witnessed. I don’t think I’m going to make it.

I can’t turn around, even though I miss my shore-mates. Even though it seems the shore is safe, for me it isn’t. It has become as dangerous as the fiery sea. I have ventured so far from the shore I can never, ever go back. At least, if I do go back, I won’t be the same. The difference this time is that my shore-mates will know I don’t fit in. Where they suspected it before, they will know with certainty that I no longer can live by their rules.

I hate being on this boat.

I can’t go forward and I can’t go back.

I have to ride out the storm and see where it takes me.

A long time ago when I was trying my best to be a shore-person, I accidentally acknowledged the Light of God inside me. This led me to the boat.

I don’t exactly understand why following the Light of God is so hard. It makes no logical sense.

Then I realize it’s because I’m still trying to follow the Light as a shore-person. I’m not ready to let go of this identity even though it never fit me to begin with. I’m afraid if I let go of the shore once and for all, I will never have the love of my shore-mates again.

I miss them already.

Since I can no longer turn back, and I’m kind of miserable here on the boat, all I can hope for is that the Light will take over.

I don’t really know yet.

“In the experience of every person, there comes a certain moment when he is penetrated by a ray of God, when a touch of God breaks through his consciousness, not because of himself, but in spite of himself. From the moment that ray touches him, the end is inevitable: he will find his way to the throne of God.”